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EU: Recycling Can Create 580,000 New Jobs

The EU-Commission has proposed that the EU should have a circular economy where milk cartons, bicycles and plastic bottles are produced, used and...

The EU should have a circular economy where waste belongs to the past, the EU-Commission proposes:

The EU should have a circular economy where milk cartons, bicycles and plastic bottles are produced, used and not thrown away, but recycled again, so resources not only take one round in the system, but are also circulated.

It will create jobs, benefit the environment and make the EU waste-free.

This means that the EU-Commission, who on Wednesday came with a new legislative package, which aims to recycle 70 percent of all household waste and 80 percent of packaging waste, by the end of 2030.

In addition, it is time to stop sending waste to landfill, which can be recycled, by 2025.

The proposal, according to the commission, could create about 580.000 new jobs.

It will need Political Action:

The EU’s Environment Commissioner, Janez Potocnik said that there that there must be a political effort to transform the economy to be circular and take advantages of the job opportunities it brings.

If we want to be competitive, we must use our resources to the maximum. This meant that we have to recycle them, so they can be productive again instead of just throwing them away to landfill, says Potocnik.

A circular economy is an alternative to the linear economy where you produce, use and throw away. The circular approach consists of taking advantage of the resources as long as possible and recycle them so that they have a new life again and again…

Margrete Auken is not happy:

The proposal builds on an existing waste directive. The EU Member States and the European Parliament must now negotiate it in place.

Margrete Auken, who sits on the Environment Committee of the European Parliament in not yet satisfied.

In Denmark we, (per person) throw away about 800 kilo of waste per year. This makes us the most waste-intensive consumer’s among Europeans. To change these tendencies, we in the EU, should have binding targets for waste reduction, like we have experienced with Belgium, she said.

Every Dane produced 668 kg of household waste 2012, which tops the EU list, while 32% of this waste was recycled. Both Denmark & Sweden burned 52% of their waste in 2012, - the highest figure in the EU.